


A Murder of Crows

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_reversebang, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-19
Updated: 2010-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 12:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean investigate disappearances in a small town. The only things left behind are smiling faces, and ghosts, and feathers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Murder of Crows

If Sam chews his pen any harder the damn thing will explode and he'll end up with ink all over the side of his face. Though Dean has to admit, that would be entertaining as all hell. More entertaining than the rain-spattered stretch of highway they've been driving down for four hours anyway. He should know, he's the one who's been staring at it.

Sam's been quiet for about twenty miles, boot jiggling restlessly against the door. God only knows whether he's distracted by the case or he's just been looking out the window for entertainment. Not that he's going to find much out there but grass, more road and the occasional wet cow.

Dean looks over at him and sighs. "So, roll out this whole thing for me again."

Sam's boot stops jiggling. He sighs and drags the pen out of his mouth.

"The town has a population of about 20,000. There have been eight disappearances in as many months, which is about eight more than in the last twenty years before that. They all follow roughly the same pattern. The victims just disappear in the middle of the night. No sign of foul play, no sign that any of them were compelled by something supernatural, or coerced in any way. The police haven't had anything to go on, no indications that it was anything other than people just deciding to up and leave. There's been no sign of any of them since. Though in three cases there were footprints across the lawn, suggesting that they left alone."

Sam holds up a hand in a 'that's it' gesture.

Dean snorts and looks over at him again. "Do we have any idea what's happening to them? I mean, do we know for sure it's something we should be looking at?"

"I'm not absolutely sure yet," Sam says slowly and flips through his notes. "But if you add in the strange weather this area's been having lately, plus there's been a couple of suspicious animal deaths, it certainly looks like something's hunting people here. I don't know how it's doing it though, how it's making people come to it, or follow it. I don't have a clue about that yet."

"And this guy we're going to see?"

Sam nods; Dean catches the movement out of the corner of his eye.

"We're going to see Andrew Baxter, the last victim's husband. He claims that he saw his wife just before she disappeared."

  
*****

  
Andrew Baxter lets them in without even glancing at their fake IDs. He barely even looks at their faces. It's almost like he's gone past worried and angry and all the way into the grim acceptance that he's not going to see his wife again. At least not alive.

He doesn't ask what they want; he just drifts towards the couch, waving an arm for them to sit, before settling into the chair across from them.

"If you could just tell us in your own words what happened the night your wife disappeared," Sam says. Sam's always been good at getting people to talk to him. For all that he's a giant he really knows how to nail the 'I'm non-threatening and you should tell me things' face. Dean's never been able to pull that off. He thinks he has a face that looks like trouble from a mile away. He can flirt and threaten for information all day long. But Sam's the one who's always just known how to ask for it the right way.

Baxter nods, slowly, like he was expecting exactly that question. But his expression pinches in, and it's easy enough to see that he still doesn't want to go over it again. As if one more time might kill him.

He inhales, trying to pull in enough air to speak.

"It's going to sound - " Baxter stops talking. He lifts a hand and pulls it down his face. It's one rough movement like he's still trying to find the right words. Trying to force it to make sense inside his head. Even though he must have gone over this with the police more than once - maybe half a dozen times or more.

"Just take your time, Mr Baxter," Sam says quietly. Sam manages to give the impression they could wait forever. Though Dean hates this part, the smiles, the patience, the sympathy - the uncomfortable suits. He hates never being able to ask the right questions. The parts where they have to pull the story out in pieces, from people who could never explain, or believe half of what they'd seen anyway.

Baxter shakes his head. His eyes are tired but dry, and he looks like he hasn't slept for days. "I'm not crazy and I know how it sounds, I know how it's _going_ to sound. I've been through this - god - so many times already."

Sam's expression is all sympathy and apology. "I'm sorry, we just need to hear it one more time."

Baxter nods, it's clear he doesn't like it but he nods.

"It was about two in the morning, I don't know the exact time, I barely glanced at the clock. Beth wasn't in bed and I figured she'd gone to the bathroom, or gone to get a drink, something. I didn't hear her get up, I didn't hear anything but I wasn't worried. It's not the sort of thing you worry about - people get up in the middle of the night. But I waited for about five or ten minutes and then I started wondering where she was. So I got up and went to find her."

Baxter pulls his hands into his lap, twists them together.

"She wasn't in the bathroom, she wasn't upstairs. I checked the kitchen, I checked the living room. I looked out the window to see if she was in the yard. It's kind of stupid but it's just what you do, y'know, you look everywhere. But I saw her out front, just past the fence. She wasn't alone."

"Someone was there with her?" Sam asks quietly, pushing him slowly but firmly in the right direction.

"Someone - someone small," Baxter sounds uncertain.

"It was a child?" Sam's frowning now, Dean can see it when he flicks his eyes sideways.

Baxter opens his mouth to answer, then shuts it, swallows, and Dean knows whatever he was going to say is gone, pushed back behind the certainty that he can't have seen what he thought he did.

"Maybe - it was about the size of a child. Wearing a mask of some sort, I don't know."

Baxter's quiet for a second, the nails of his right hand shifting on the knuckles of his left.

"It was waiting at the edge of the lawn, just waiting there and not moving. It held out its hand, like it expected Beth to follow. And she just took it, she took it and followed it around the corner."

Dean doesn't miss the way the unnamed person, child, becomes an 'it' rather than 'he,' 'she' or 'them.'

Baxter looks up, expression tight like he still doesn't know _why_. That quiet desperation for someone to just _explain._

"I ran out of the house after her. I don't know why I was so scared, I just knew that I had to stop her, I had to stop her before - " Baxter stops again, the sentence left unfinished like it has nowhere to go. "It wouldn’t have taken me more than a minute to get to the road, to see past the trees. You can see for miles once you reach the road. But she was gone, both of them were gone. There was nothing there, nothing at all, just the road, just the road and the trees and...nothing."

"There was no car -" Dean starts.

"I would have heard a car," Baxter says dully. "We're in the middle of nowhere, I would have heard anything drive away. She was just - they were both just gone. I don't know. But I kept thinking, if I'd just called out. If I'd run outside straight away..." He stops talking, swallows and makes a rough noise in his throat, something that's not even close to a laugh but seems to want to be. His hands are going white where they tangle together.

Sam looks sideways at him while Baxter stares at his hands. Dean can read the look on his face well enough. Because they've both seen this enough times to know that whatever this man saw out there scared him, scared the hell out of him. And now he's pretending - or he's convinced himself - that he hadn't seen anything strange at all.

There's a chance, a slim chance, that they can get something else out of him if they push. Dean can already feel Sam leaning forward in his seat. He can't help but notice, again, how much easier this is for Sam. The reassuring people. The easing them somewhere where they feel comfortable sharing something that's clearly insane.

Dean takes the opportunity to take a good look around the living room. To see if there's anything that shouldn't be there. Or anything that's missing. When his eyes pass the window he catches a flicker of movement, and looks up.

The yard is full of crows.

*****

  
The investigation into every disappearance so far fills just one box at the local police station. It's already half-dusty and the lid's broken on one side. It comes apart when Sam lifts it off.

Dean gives a disgusted huff. "This file is so thin I can practically see through it. Jesus, did they even investigate this?"

"Investigate what?" Sam says with a frown, dropping the lid on the table. "This is it, for every single disappearance. This is all the evidence. We're lucky they even thought to put it all together. They could have stayed separate cases and then there'd be nothing on them at all. We should be glad someone around here noticed that they all fit a pattern."

"Or maybe they just didn't want to go looking for more boxes," Dean guesses, and rubs the dust on his fingers off on his jeans.

Sam digs in a little deeper, finds a collection of glossy photographs of the missing people, half folded at the bottom of the box where they've slid out of the files. "It's not a lot to go on."

Dean fishes inside the box himself, stops when his knuckles hit something small and plastic. He drags it out, finds that he's holding an audio tape. He pulls a face at it, then pulls a face at Sam.

"Is there a machine around here?"

Sam finds one on the shelf behind him and Dean flicks the tape in.

The first ten seconds is a police officer reeling off case information. He's talking to a suspect in the second disappearance, one Edgar Hoburn.

_' - to tell me again, for the tape, what happened the last time you saw Mary?'_

_'So you can call me a liar again?'_

The voice on the tape is sharp, angry.

_That's not why we're here, we just want to get it straight.'_

_'I know what I saw.'_

_'Just tell us again.'_

There's a sigh, then a low, soft noise that sounds like hands moving on the table.

_'She wasn't twenty feet from her own front door, and the yard was empty. I know for damn sure it was empty. Only then it wasn't - then there was someone else behind her. A small thing, just holding its hand out like it expected her to follow it.'_

_'A child?'_

A rough, heavy noise of disgust follows the question.

_'That thing wasn't no child. Oh, it was the size of one alright but you wouldn’t mistake it for one if you'd seen it up close. Nothing but feathers from the neck up. Black little eyes. I don't know where that thing came from but it wasn't anything like us.'_

After a second's silence there's the heavy, close sound of a sigh, a rustle of paper, someone's boots squeaking noisily on the floor.

_'Edgar, do you know what you sound like? Do you know what all this sounds like? How am I supposed to write this down in the report? It sounds like drunken ramblings and you know it. How much had you had to drink that night?_

There's a dry smack, and a heavy rush of paper moving. If Dean had to guess he's say someone just slapped paper - a file, maybe - out of someone's hands.

_'Bullshit. I hadn't had a single drop before the bar, saw the damn thing clear as day and hell if I ever want to see anything like it ever again._

There's a scrape, as if the speaker has just shoved his chair violently back.

_'Edgar - Edgar, sit down.'_

_'There's no point trying to convince you of anything, you've already made up your mind. '_

_'Edgar.'_

The tape rattles and then clicks off.

"Feathers?" Sam says quietly.

  
*****

  
With nothing in the way of real leads to follow, they end up outside the Baxter's house again at one in the morning. They leave their flashlights dipped down so the guy doesn’t see them creeping around his lawn and freak out. Dean thinks Baxter's had enough freaking out for one lifetime. Especially considering there's a good chance his wife was eaten by something.

Dean trains his flashlight on the ground.

"There were footprints in this case, right? Where did they say they went?" he asks Sam.

Sam lifts an arm, points across the field. "Straight across, towards where the trees hit the road."

Dean turns around to face him. Because it's October and the wind keeps snatching away everything he says if he's not facing Sam.

"This is a damn good spot to snatch someone from, whether you're a monster or not. Nothing around for miles, crap-load of shadows as soon as it hits darkness. There’s a tree line to move into if anyone drives or walks by."

Dean looks at the ground again, then looks at the fence, thick wire tacked to the posts with what he's fairly sure are iron nails. He strides over there to make sure.

"He said it was waiting at the edge of the lawn right? He said that it didn't come past the fence?"

Sam nods.

Dean puts a hand on the fence, presses it against the edge of the wire where it's held down by large-headed nails. "This thing's got iron nails in it."

Sam's expression turns hopeful. "You think we're dealing with a ghost?"

"Have you got the EMF meter?"

"Yeah, hang on." Sam shoves the flashlight under his arm and fishes in the left side of his jacket.

Dean waits for Sam to turn the thing on, passing his flashlight across the field. The trees give a loud rush when the force of the wind hits them. The movement breaks the field up into jagged pieces, the full moon lighting an untidy path through the grass. Yeah, this place officially wins points in the 'creepy outdoors' stakes.

Dean's turned around again and it takes him a second to realise that Sam's calling his name.

He twists back so he can hear him.

"This is where she disappeared from, best guess," Sam says.

Dean nods.

"So she turns away from the house -" Dean points the flashlight off across the field and up the road "It takes Baxter, what, about thirty or forty seconds to get over here?"

"Probably not even that," Sam says with a shake of his head, judging the distance. "If he was running it'd be more like ten or fifteen."

"And there's nowhere for them to have gone."

Sam shakes his head, because it's already obvious.

"She didn't just disappear into thin air," Dean says sensibly. "She was flesh and blood."

Sam frowns, like he's not so sure. Like it wouldn't be the strangest thing they've seen. "It's exactly what happened to everyone else, they just disappeared."

Dean swings the flashlight back round. It hits nothing but trees and patches of deep, wet grass. Wood creaks around them, branches shifting and bending in, leaves tumbling down thickly on every gust.

The EMF meter is making quiet, low clicks, not committing itself to anything but clearly unhappy.

Dean's trying to see if there are any holes in the ground, the familiar, disturbed earth of hastily dug graves, when Sam calls back to him.

"Dean, come look at this."

Sam's standing near one of the farthest trees, light shining at chest level.

The trunk isn't solid. The sturdy roughness of it is cut through with a long, almost natural-looking gap. The slit in the tree is dark but wide, wide enough for Dean to get his hand in. The inside of it is a smear of even deeper darkness

They both stare at it.

"Dean, tell me you're not seriously thinking about putting your hand in there."

Dean pulls a face and tosses Sam his flashlight.

Sam's expression twists into something unhappy over the stark beam of light. "I'm going to go on record as saying this is definitely the stupidest thing you've done in a while."

Dean grunts because, yeah, he's pretty sure Sam has a point. Though he's damned if he's leaving here without seeing what the hell's in there.

He tugs the sleeve of his shirt up; lifts his hand and lays it on the tree, the bark's a rough scrape of sensation that's almost warm. He mutters a curse under his breath and without thinking about it any more than he has to, he slips his hand into the rough gap. The inside of the tree is damp, cold and the strange softness of moss presses against the back of his hand. Hard edges of wood scraping along his wrist, fingertips sliding in where the tree's wet. He's fairly sure he can feel things moving under his hand. The crawl of worms and the faint tickle of insect legs on his skin.

Sam's holding the flashlight beam steady on his arm, an oval in the darkness. He's close enough to reach out and catch hold of Dean if anything goes wrong - if anything tries to grab him from inside.

Jesus, he wishes he hadn't just thought that.

There are a lot of bugs inside now, he can feel them crawling where he's disturbing the loose wood and soft moss.

"Crap."

"What?" The beam skitters over his arm.

"Tree stuff," Dean complains, twists his hand and reaches in further.

"What's inside?"

"I'm not - I'm still trying to see, just wait." His fingers brush feathers, small and prickling in a way that crawls unpleasantly up his spine. He edges past them, over small stones, or pebbles - until he catches something that isn't natural, something small and metallic. "Wait, I've got something."

The light shifts up, covers the edge of the hole where Dean's arm is now sliding free. The light rolls over his dirt-smeared wrist and hand. Then glints off the silver chain that comes free after it in a drift of moss and feathers. It dangles from Dean's fingers, the heart-shaped pendant spinning slowly.

The EMF meter clicks and whines sharply, discordantly.

"What's the betting this belongs to one of the missing women?" Dean says.

He opens his hand fully and discovers that he's dragged one of the pebbles out with it.

Only it's not a pebble.

It's a human finger bone.

  
*****

Sam had made copies of the police file, thin as it was, and it's easy to see straight away. The fourth victim Amy Brenner is smiling in her photo. She's also clearly wearing the heart-shaped necklace.

"It's definitely hers," he says with a nod.

Dean drops the photo, watches it slither over Sam's fingers and lay against the table. Sam lets his fingertips rest on it.

"So how did it end up in the tree?"

Dean grunts. "Or how did _she_ end up in the tree?"

Sam pulls a face. "You think she was actually inside there?"

Dean shrugs and sits down on the bed, pulling the laces of his boots undone.

"I think she got in there eventually, whether the damn thing swallowed her whole or something happened to her first and that's just where she ended up later, who the hell knows. But I think we definitely need to know more about this town."

Sam gathers all the photos together again, and then leans back in his chair.

"I can go to the library tomorrow, try and find something about the history of the place. I had a quick look before we got here, but as far as I could tell these were the first disappearances that looked even remotely suspicious."

Dean drops his muddy boots over the side of the bed.

"There's been - what - roughly a month between disappearances?" Dean watches Sam nod. "Beth Baxter was taken nearly three weeks ago, so no one else is going to get snatched between now and tomorrow."

"Yeah, I think we're good," Sam says.

"Tomorrow," Dean says simply, and lets himself fall back on the bed.

  
*****

Dean buys breakfast, which turns out to be donuts and strong, cheap coffee. Sam brings back a handful of photocopies and a file full of photographs that suggests he's been back to the police station.

He sets it all down on the table beside his open laptop.

He waits while Dean finishes his donut, though why he thinks Dean can't eat and concentrate at the same time is a freakin' mystery.

"This town's pretty ordinary, truth be told. A few disappearances but most of them for the usual reasons, a couple of murders over property, house fires. Nothing that really stands out at first glance."

Dean knows the look on Sam's face, he knows that he has something else.

"But...?"

Sam nods. "Other disappearances, from other states, normal things like runaways, people in trouble with the police, people leaving their husbands or wives. They head this way and then...nothing. It's been going on for about fifty years."

Dean leans forward on his chair and frowns hard.

"So, you're saying people that run away for ordinary reasons reach this town and - what, never leave?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. And not just never leave. They're never seen or heard from again."

Dean frowns. "So until eight months ago the town was happy to take in strangers and now it's what, started eating its own?"

"That's one way of putting it," Sam says.

Dean turns the other chair around and sits on it backwards, elbows leant on the back of it.

"So, what changed eight months ago?"

Sam shakes his head. "I don't know."

"What did the guy on the tape say?"

Sam doesn't even have to look at his notes. "He said it wasn't a child. He said it was 'nothing but feathers from the neck up.'"

"So what, we've got some sort of half-man, half-bird ghosts?"

"Half-child, half-bird," Sam corrects, then makes a face like he can't quite believe he'd said that either. "But it wouldn't be the first time ghosts have manifested with some sort of animal attribute. Eyes, heads, tails, feet, even jaws."

Dean pulls a face because, yeah, that's gross. "Jaws?"

Sam nods. He looks for a minute like he's going to turn his laptop round and prove it.

Dean waves a hand. "Dude, I'm going to take your word for that."

He finishes the coffee that's on the table, swallows a mouthful of it. It's bitter and barely warm. "But we think it's definitely a ghost?"

"We've got the EMF, the disappearances, the fact that they couldn't come past the iron boundary. I think it's something we can work with."

Dean nods. "But ghosts haunt specific areas, or people, they don't actively hunt for victims."

"Unless the whole town is haunted," Sam suggests.

Dean hopes that his eyebrows of disbelief can properly convey his thoughts on that.

"A haunted town? With a population of twenty thousand?"

Sam shrugs. "It wouldn't be the weirdest thing we've encountered."

"I can't help but think that if it was the whole town they'd have snagged a hell of a lot more than eight people. Not to mention the EMF would probably be going batshit right about now."

"But it _feels_ like a haunting," Sam says.

Dean nods agreement. "So what's the focal point? Why are they hanging around?"

"I have an idea about that too," Sam says and lays his hand on the photographs across the table. He swivels one of them round, a photo of the Baxter's farmhouse taken in what looks like the sixties, the stern occupants standing stiffly outside.

He pushes it across the table. "What does this look like to you?"

Dean frowns at the photograph.

"The Baxter's place," he says, because Sam's clearly trying to tell him something, something he's not getting.

"Something missing?" Sam prods.

"Missing?"

"Something which should be in the photo but isn't?" Sam gives him the eyebrow raise of 'I know you're smart enough to get this.' Dean wonders if he should be insulted or not.

Dean frowns. It was fifty years ago. So anything that should be there -

"The trees," he says, and he's frowning already, because trees take hundreds of years to grow that tall. "Where the hell are the trees?"

Sam replaces the photograph he's looking at with another, from a few years later. The trees are already towering over the farmhouse.

"You're telling me no one noticed when a bunch of trees grew pretty much overnight?"

"The Jennings, who owned the farm then, supposedly kept to themselves. It's possible no one was out there often enough to think there was anything weird about it."

Dean puts both photos side by side.

"Super observational fail there," he decides. "So the trees aren't supposed to be there and we've got small feathered ghosts abducting people."

Sam nods.

"So, it's not the town that's haunted...?"

"I think what we're looking at here is some sort of parasitical haunting centred on the land around that farmhouse."

"The trees are manifestations of the haunting, or the trees are haunted?" Dean shakes his head. "Yeah, I can't believe I said that either."

"I think it's more likely that the trees are some sort of entity or entities that are controlling the haunting itself. They're manifesting their own ghosts to...feed themselves, or bring them food. I think the trees are living off of the town. I've been trying to find some way to stop a parasitical haunting. The creatures it's manifesting react like ghosts but this thing is more like some sort of magically created monster."

Dean drops his lighter on the table.

"How about we burn them down?"

Sam blinks.

"Yeah," he says. "I think that'll probably work."

  
*****

  
They wait until dark, then longer, until all the lights go out in the Baxter house.

There's a can full of gas in the trunk, salt and iron, all of which Dean pulls out and sets down at their feet. They're as prepared as they can be, no matter what comes for them. It's only one night past the full moon, still light enough to see by. Sam's left his flashlight in the car, Dean's shoved his through his belt just in case. Having their hands free is kind of a priority if they're going to go at these things with fire. Because Dean's fairly sure they're not going to be allowed to just storm in there and set fire to everything. He's been doing this job long enough to know nothing's ever that easy.

The closer they get the more it becomes obvious that the place isn't empty. The untidy ring that the trees mark out is a space of bright moonlight and patches of shadow. Standing in the deepest part of each is a small figure. Dressed in the tatty remains of what looks like children's clothing, skin inhumanly white and mostly bare to the freezing night air.

Dean sinks to a crouch in the grass, Sam behind him.

Hoburn was right, the children - the things - have no faces, no human faces. Instead they all have what look like the grossly misshapen heads of birds, black feathers and black eyes. Strange and darting, stiff when they turn them on their pale necks. Dean can hear the faint rustle of feathers on the breeze.

They're all motionless, hands hanging down with the fingers spread, like a sullen child refusing to be picked up.

In the centre of that patch of light is the slumped body of a cow. Its head is turned gruesomely to one side, at an angle too wrong to be natural. The torn spill of its insides definitely marks it as dead. They're downwind, but the animal's guts are still steaming gently, suggesting the slaughter is recent.

One of the creatures? Ghosts? - Dean's still not quite sure how to classify them - comes forward, presses a stiff hand into the cow's body. Its small, bony fingers come out red and there's a low rustle as the wind picks and snatches at its clothes and feathered hair.

"I think they're talking." Sam's voice is low and close to his ear. He's crouched in the dirt next to him, folded over against his shoulder.

"What?"

"That noise -" It comes again, the low shushing murmur of it. Like the wind is dragging everything the wrong way "I think they're talking."

Dean's about to point out that it would be pretty damn helpful if they knew what they were saying. But then the others are all stepping forward through the grass on bare feet to join the first. They move closer to the dead animal, drifting through the bright patches of moonlight, which pick out the shine of their feathers and eyes. They copy the first creature's strange movements once they're close enough to the spill of the cow's blood and its open wound. Dean listens to the rush of sound and the soft, clicking before they're moving apart again, stiff bird heads tilting and turning to look at each other, carrying their bloody hands outwards. They go to the trees, pressing their fingers to the trunks like they're about to start counting down for hide and seek.

Dean's seen enough, he stands and makes his way further into the clearing and he knows by the heavy tread of boots on grass that Sam's right behind him.

He half expects the creatures to scatter, like birds do, when they see them. But they don't, instead they all turn as one, tiny black eyes fixed on the both of them.

"Dean?"

"I know," he says fiercely.

There's a harsh, droning flurry of feathers shifting and the ghostly bird children start moving through the grass, padding on bare towards them, bloody fingers still hanging at their sides.

"We have to get past them."

"Yeah, working on that," Dean tells him.

Sam goes to the left to give them something else to focus on. Dean thinks maybe there's going to have to be a change of plans. He thinks they're going to have to go straight through them.

But the things turn out to be faster than they look - Dean's still halfway through a swing when the creature in front of him twists fluidly and digs its tiny red fingers into his shirt. The cold of it knocks all the air out of him, tire iron jerking under the weight of it. He catches the thing across the shoulders rather than round the back of the head.

It melts, slowly, almost reluctantly. He briefly feels the echo where it was, like the air has turned to syrup. There's a shriek of anger and the slow drift of feathers.

He catches sight of Sam tossing salt in the face of one of the small creatures, sees it fall back, unravelling like dark material on the breeze. Another runs up behind him, grasps at the back of Sam's shirt. It's sent flailing into the dirt when Sam jerks around and lashes out.

The one Dean broke apart reforms behind him, faster than any ghost he's known has ever managed to put itself back together. Its weight hits his legs, taking him to his knees in the dirt and the iron thuds against the ground, just out of arm's reach. Dean swears and kicks it in the face, sends it squawking and tumbling - and then another, thinner than the first climbs onto his chest and tries to dig its fingers through his skin. It's one quick burst of pain, like it fully intends to just keep pushing until it reaches his heart. He scrabbles his flashlight out of his belt and swings it hard, watches it smash into the weight of feathers and beak and send the thing tumbling away.

Dean rolls, scrambles forward and lunges for the iron's end. He finds himself staring straight into a little bird-like face.

One of the creature's hands is stretched out. Its pale fingers smeared red at the ends. It's not beckoning him, it's not reaching for him. It's just laid open on the ground. Its fingers spread slowly, small and delicate, they move towards his own in tiny, almost nervous movements. Dean could wrap its whole hand in one of his own.

It's the tiniest damn hand he's ever seen...and he knows that this vulnerable thing is brittle and breakable and if he doesn't take its hand it could very well just blow away. He knows it's a lie, knows it's something the thing’s doing. Because every instinct he has is telling him to smash it to pieces. There's nothing behind those eyes, nothing at all. These ghosts didn't even ever used to be human. There'll be nothing if he takes this thing's hand but a mouthful of dirt and a long sleep in the belly of something nasty.

But whatever powers this thing, it's strong. Dean can't look away, can't break eye contact and the thing kneels down, hand still stretched out, rustling and patient as the dead.

"Dean!"

He can't even look up, can't see where Sam is or what he's doing.

There's nothing but the eyes.

He grunts - grits his teeth, forces himself to turn away, to let the creature blur in his vision.

But the things searching fingers have already touched the ends of his own, small and brittle and cold as the grave -

  
*****

Sam watches one of the bird creatures break apart in front of him, cut through with one lash from the iron poker he's holding.

But he can see through the swirling edges of it that Dean's gone.

There's no sign of his brother, or the bird creature that was crouched in front of him.

The taller, thinner creature that had been clawing at Dean's back is now kneeling in the dirt, completely still and utterly alone. Until it looks up and sees him. It's tiny black eyes fix on him. Then it rises in one stilted, awkward movement and comes forward on noiseless feet towards him.

  
*****

Dean's in complete darkness. He can hear the hollow rush of his own breathing, can feel the hard dig of wood where he's lying. The air smells foul, like blood and death and the tang of old rot. His legs kick something hard and he's struggling to get to his pocket, to get his fingers in, one quick shove that leaves his elbow smacking into something that resists the movement and makes his whole arm ring.

He fumbles his lighter out, flicking the top and rolling the wheel sharply.

Light flares in the darkness, and Dean finds himself face to face with a long plane of damp mud-stained wood, dirt-smeared wood either side of him. His thumb slides and digs on the lighter, almost burning in the flame.

"Crap."

He already knows he's underground, somewhere near the trees, a shallow grave, crudely braced open with planks of wood. It's obviously not meant to hold a person for long. It's hastily built, but it's cold and it's secure, like some sort of freakin' storage locker.

Dean wonders if this is where all eight missing people died.

"Sam," he calls. Then he holds his breath, bites down on the instinctive need to struggle in the small space. He can't spare the air, or the energy.

He kicks the wood, hears the low 'thunk' that suggests the wood is new and not as strong as it looks, maybe weak enough to break if he can get enough force behind it. He hopes to god the grave is as shallow as he thinks it is, because if it's not - if he's down too deep the mud will shower in and suffocate him before he can claw his way out.

He kicks the wood again, hears it splinter -

  
*****

  
The salt goes skittering out of Sam's hand, hits the floor and spins, spilling everywhere in a white spiral.

There are still fingers in his shirt, digging all the way through like they're trying to reach the skin of his back, small and bony, the rustle of feathers is too loud. Like the creature's close enough to snap its beak at his throat if it wants to.

He lunges, shirt tearing, and gets his hand round the pot. He rolls in one movement, flinging the salt out in one long arc.

There's a high screech and the creatures come apart, unravelling under the shower of it.

Sam swears and gets his legs under him.

"Dean?"

He can hear the wet crack of wood somewhere close and chooses to believe it's his brother and not more of the bird-headed children.

The gas can is still tipped over where the fight started, and Sam's up on his feet, half running and half sliding in that direction. There's a low, angry hiss just underneath the drowning loudness of leaves. The wind feels like it follows him, catches his clothes and tries to tug him back down.

He takes the can back into the clearing, unscrewing the top and tossing the liquid out in quick, hectic movements. The gas hits the trees, a wet, choking splash that lands and clings to the trunks and low branches, running in trails down the wood and leaving it dark.

The hissing becomes a roar and he knows he doesn't have long before the things come back and try to stop him. The liquid comes out hard on every sway, thrown up in an arc to coat the leaves and run down the trunk in a flood. The can's nearly empty, only letting out small wet splashes and flicks when small hands catch at his shirt. They drag him back and down, tugging the can out of his hands and tearing material. There's too many of them, Sam's tumbling backwards, landing hard on the much smaller creatures on his back. They don't fight his weight but keep pulling, keep digging, tiny fingernails pushing in hard enough to draw blood. Sam knows they're strong enough that they can dig deeper still. More come forward, one of them dropping between his thrashing legs.

It lunges for him - and gets a face full of salt, exploding in a cloud of feathers and darkness.

Sam turns on the ground.

Dean's an untidy mess of dirt and twigs standing next to him. "And stay down."

Sam exhales relief and catches the hand Dean lowers, gripping it tight, and hauling himself to his feet. The creatures under him get the same treatment as the first.

Dean flicks open his lighter, holds it against the nearest tree and watches flame catch and then race up the wood in a wave.

The roaring goes high-pitched, a shrieking wail of rage as the darkness is cut through with fire. The flame curls from tree to tree, branches catching and flaring and passing the fire on, until all of them are burning, high flames that eat in and through in a way that's nothing like natural.

The bird creatures are melting in a rush of clicks and chitters, smearing out and vanishing entirely. The trees are screaming, a high creaking wail that goes on and on, and it's the most hideous sound Sam's ever heard.

He can feel the heat of the fire on his face when Dean catches his arm and draws him back away from burning trees.

They stand there and watch them burn, watch them turn black and break apart, burning leaves coming free and drifting down to land as smears of glowing ash.

They stay there until the only sound is the familiar, harmless crackle of burning wood.

  



End file.
